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An image of a new modular data center design unveiled earlier this week by Toshiba.

Toshiba Corporation has entered the modular data center business, the company said this week. Toshiba has completed a prototype modular design at a demonstration facility at its Fuchu Complex in western Tokyo as a first step in entering the Japanese market. The company said it plans "energetic marketing activities" as it expands the business globally.

Toshiba's demonstration facility was set up in approximately three months, demonstrating the time-to0market advantages of modular units compared to traditional data centers, which can take a year to deploy. The prototype features a steel frame structure that allows modules to be stacked, boosting capacity within the available footprint. Each server room supports 200kVA of power, and can fit nine racks of equipment with a 46U capacity.

Free Cooling Employed
Each modular server room is coupled with an air conditioning module that uses fresh-air (free cooling) to reduce power consumption. Estimates for a unit installed in Kanto, Japan, the region around Tokyo, indicate that using free cooling in non-summer months offers power savings of about 35 percent compared to an equivalent facility using chillers.

Each modular data center requires about 2,325 square feet (216 square meters), according to Toshiba. The server and power modules are each 9.05 meters (29.7 feet in length), while the cooling module is 4.36 meters (14.3 feet) long.

Toshiba will accelerate domestic and overseas promotion of the data center business and targets annual sales of approximately twenty billion yen ($240 million) in 2015.